This invention relates to an arrangement for the tensioning of a tape in a machine for the loading of magnetic tapes onto a cassette wherein the tape to be loaded is tensioned and directed to one of a plurality of cassette loading stations.
In these machines, a spool is used onto which the magnetic tape is spooled at many times the length of a tape that is to be loaded onto a cassette. The continuous tape may be blank or may contain a plurality of previous recordings, possibly in the form of a music program that cyclically repeats itself according to the number of the cassettes to be loaded. From this spool, the continuous tape is spooled off in order to be fed to a loading station for the cassettes. Between the spool and the loading station, a tape-tensioning arrangement is usually provided whose purpose it is to furnish the tape to the loading station at constant tension and without vibrations, so that the correct and undisturbed execution of operating sequences in said loading station is ensured.
The tensioning mechanism consists essentially of a closed container, on the inside of which a vacuum is generated and into which and out of which the tape coming from the spool enters and exits through a gap. The tensioning is obtained by forming a loop in the tape by means of a vacuum. The tensioning mechanism has curved elements for the guiding of the tape into and out of the container.
In addition to the winding-up of the portion of the tape that is intended for a cassette, various preceding and subsequent operations are also carried out in the loading stations that are known to those skilled in the art. The overall time period that each cassette remains in the loading station, increased by the time required for the exchanging of the cassettes, far exceeds the time required for the loading operation.
With the objective of better utilizing the capabilities of this type of machine and increasing its productivity up to twice the amount, it was suggested (U.S. Patent 4,332,355) to provide two operating stations in such a machine so that two cassettes may be processed from one roll, so that when the preceding and subsequent operations take place in one station, including the replacement of the just loaded cassette by an empty one, in the other station the operating sequence of the winding-up takes place on another cassette.
Since the arriving tape must be aligned perfectly with the station in which the winding-up takes place, and because, as mentioned before, in a machine of the above-mentioned type with two operating stations, the winding-up process takes place alternately in both stations, a shifting of the arriving tape becomes necessary in order to align it each time with the respective station. This shifting of the arriving tape, according to the known state of the art, was carried out by a tape-guiding fork which was placed at the outlet of the tensioning mechanism to take up one of two positions; one signifies an alignment with one station and the other signifies an alignment with the second station. Shifting of said fork took place in vertical direction to the moving direction of the tape moving through the fork
It was found that this type of alignment of the arriving tape alternately with both operating stations results in several disadvantages. Indeed, the path that the tape must take through the tape-guiding fork mechanism in a relatively short distance between the outlet from the tape-tensioning arrangement and the operating stations caused strong and inadmissible vibrations to be induced in the tape (that moves at a uniform and fairly high speed) that interfere with the correct operation of the winding-up process.
It was also demonstrated that the passing through a guiding fork can result in damaging vibrations in the tape itself, which would make it advantageous for the tape to reach the processing station directly from the outlet of the tape-tensioning arrangement over a path that is as short as possible and without the tape's coming in contact with other elements.
It is an objective of the present invention to solve the problem of the necessary alignment of the arriving tape alternately with one or another of two operating stations that are provided in a machine for the loading of magnetic tapes onto a cassette, without the occurrence of the above-mentioned disadvantages.
In order to solve this problem, the position of the arriving tape in the processing stations was changed by slightly turning the plane of said tape instead of shifting the tape on the same plane. In this way no detour of the course of the tape takes place, but rather there is only a slight twist that may also be distributed over a larger distance which therefore results in no noticeable vibration or other interferences with a the high speed loading machine.
The invention provides a tape-tensioning mechaninsm in a machine for the loading of magnetic tapes onto cassettes having two operating stations and having a closed tensioning container in which a vacuum exists and into which and out of which the tape enters and exits through a gap while forming a loop. Curved elements for the guiding of the tape into the inlet and out of the outlet of the tensioning container are provided with the curved outlet element and the tensioning container itself both being mounted on a pivoted carrier. Control means are provided to command shifting of said carrier, in an angularly alternating way, into one or the other of two positions in which the curved outlet element is aligned with one or the other of the two operating stations in order to feed the tape directly to the corrected station.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description when taken with the accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, an embodiment in accordance with the present invention.